Tag: ashley baxstrom

Birth Control! For Everybody!

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Ashley Baxstrom: Ladies, let’s celebrate! Check out this breaking blog post from Think Progress: Obama administration approves rule that guarantees near-universal contraceptive coverage, by guest blogger Jessica Arons, Director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at American Progress. She writes:

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles.

Twenty-eight states already require employers to provide some coverage; but now, full coverage will be required in all.

Wowza! You know what that means – yup, Viagra no longer corners the coverage market. (Cuz, you know, Viagra has been fully covered for years. Good for men. Sucked for women who thought they should have equal rights or fair treatment or whatever.)

Besides that, it means that even most religiously-affiliated organizations have to comply. Obama decided to “maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt.” Continue Reading →

No time for games

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Thanks to our friendly fellow blogger The Sensuous Curmudgeon for drawing our attention this story: a story about the quest for truth. A story about history and modernity. A story about one of the greatest stories ever told – with a children’s board game. And a story about the people who hate that game.
In a Jan. 9 article entitled “Noah’s Ark Game Misses the Boat,” Institute for Creation Research (ICR) Science Writer – I’m sorry, “science writer” – Brian Thomas, M.S. (don’t miss the M.S.) blasts toy maker Ideal for their new Noah’s Ark Game (on sale at Wal-Mart!) for contributing to what is apparently a dearth of stories, toys and other representations which “parody” and create a “misleading impression” about the biblical Ark. Continue Reading →

A Very Perry Christmas

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Ashley Baxstrom:  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Christmas tree lots sprouting up like weeds, Christmas lights hung on trees in every wannabe-hip-neighborhood in the five boroughs, a whole new set of Christmas displays in the Macy’s windows. And of course, the turtledove on top:  pundits and politicians decrying the “War on Christmas.” There may not be snow on the ground (the rolling Texas farmland ground), but there are Kay Jewelers commercials on the air, which means the culture wars – like poinsettias and gingerbread lattes – must be back in season.  Today Gov. Perry released a brand new campaign ad, keeping pace with the other GOP candidates and the changing season.

“I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a Christian,” Perry says. “But you don’t need to be in the pews every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”  (Really, if you didn’t watch it before, just – just watch it. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the voice of the Ghost of a Certain Texas President Past.)

Perry promises (drawls) that if he’s elected he’ll stop “Obama’s war on religion” and will fight against “liberal attacks on our religious heritage.” Continue Reading →

One Verse at a Time

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Ashley Baxstrom: There are trending topics, and then there are trending topics. Like the kind that will last 86 years rather than a week. Bonus staying power if they’re holy!

Beliefnet reported a project called “#TweetTheBible,” started by some guy named Anthony J. Thompson and his friends, who basically joked that St. Paul would totally have used Twitter to get out the Good News (all the News that’s fit to tweet, which, well we can do that!) In fact Thompson, a 30-year-old web developer, says he “has always felt called to use technology to edify the global Christian community.”

The result of his calling is @TweetTheBible86 (with a Facebook counterpart), which launched at 11:11 am on November 11 (11/11/11, 11:11 am) with the first verse of Genesis (so that’s 1-1:1?): “Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, God create the heavens and the earth. ..” Continue Reading →

Spice Up Your (Church) Life

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Ashley Baxstrom: Apparently, the Roman Catholic Church is at risk of death by boredom. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, has told priests they need to pump up their sermons with the scandalous parts of the Bible or face becoming “irrelevant.”  Because, you know, Catholics don’t have enough scandal to deal with already.

Speaking at an event in Rome, the cardinal emphasized the need for priests to keep up with modern media and communicative processes, admonishing them to remember that their congregants are “children of the television and the internet.”

While what that doesn’t means for Ravasi is that Catholics today are better informed, or more curious, or can take in more information faster, he does promote priests’ use of new media. “Communicating faith doesn’t just take place through sermons,” he says, “It can be achieved through the 140 characters of a Twitter message.”  But it seems that the digital age requires a kind of negative adaptation. Don’t challenge your followers – use simple stories to talk to them. In the fast-paced world of new media, he’s saying, there’s no time for thought or argument; rather, “cut to the heart of the matter, resort to narratives and colour.” The Bible is full of stories and symbols – SCANDALOUS ONES, don’t forget – that excite listeners’ passions.  And that, apparently, is how you motivate the spirit. Continue Reading →

What Secular Space?: The Met Hedges Muslim

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Ashley Baxstrom: If you’re in New York (and if you’re not, come), head over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and check out their New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. November 1 marked the grand reopening of 15 enlarged, reconceived and renovated galleries of what the Museum touts as one of the world’s best and most comprehensive collections of Islamic art.

Museum Director Thomas P. Campbell says the exhibit “trace[s] the course of Islamic civilization over a span of 13 centuries, from the Middle East to North Africa, Europe, and Central and South Asia. This new geographic orientation signals a revised perspective on this important collection, recognizing that the monumentality of Islam did not create a single, monolithic artistic expression, but instead connected a vast geographic expanse through centuries of change and cultural influence.” Continue Reading →

Keeping Up with the Kanasanis

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Ashley Baxstrom: Step aside, Kardashian family. “Jersey Shore”? So last season. If you totally want to be on the cutting-edge of today’s reality tv-world, you need to really venture into the fascinating unknown. Pageant moms for the under-age? Been there. Swamp people? Done that. So what’s the most out-there, the scariest, and most interesting social group in America today?

Muslims! Thanks, TLC. Continue Reading →

Hip to be Square: Between Faith and Flannel

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Ashley Baxstrom: Maybe Presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman haven’t yet convinced you that Mormons are cool? Perhaps the recent stream of “I’m a Mormon” billboards, taxi-tops and television ads don’t do the trick, even though one includes a guy with a hawk and another has a surfer girl? But that’s ok. When it comes down to it, we all know there’s really only one thing that bestows and conveys social status and awesomeness – and that’s fashion.

Continue Reading →

Calling Nazi

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Ashley Baxstrom: Thank God for celebrities, you know? Like, for real. Because without them, how else would conservative religious authors promote their books in new and exciting ways, am I right?

Author and radio personality Teresa Tomeo has found her golden goose (or is it a calf?) to rail against in the recent remarks made by actress Susan Sarandon about Pope Benedict XVI. During a red-carpet interview at last weekend’s Hamptons International Film Festival, Sarandon referred to the Pope as a “Nazi.” The comment came up during a conversation about Sarandon’s 1995 film “Dead Man Walking,” based on an anti-death penalty book by Sister Helen Prejean, whom Sarandon portrayed in the film. Sarandon said she had sent a copy of the book to Pope John Paul II, “the last one, not this Nazi one we have now.” Continue Reading →